Last time I mentioned groups as the key way of promoting your music in Second Life. Groups are a way of telling people who are likely to be interested in you, that you are playing, and to come and check ou out. The best groups of all are those where there is a high correlation between what you are doing, and the groups interests. So if you play death metal, dont be signing up to the Second Life Christian Happiness Club, just because it has four thousand members. You won’t get any takers.

The very best fit, in terms of a group, are people who have signed up to YOUR group, because they like what you do. Anyone can made a group, and in Second Life, your own group becomes incredibly important – essentially it is your lifeblood. The larger your group, the bigger the crowd you can regularly pull, and thus, the more the venue owners will be prepared to pay you.

To make a group, you’ll have to pay 100 Lindens, which is less that 50 American cents. Before you make one, be sure that you have at least TWO good freind, who have group space and will stay in your group. Groups get shut down when their membership falls below two.

Here is how to set up a group of your own:

1. Go to the menubar at the top left of the screen. Click on “Communiate”
2. Select My Groups.
3. The groups window will open on the right hand side
4. Look down to the bottom of the window to where the plus sign is
5. Click the  plus button.
6. Select “New Group”
7. The cursor will appear in the topmost feild, where you need to type the group name. Mine is called “The Darkness of JordanReyne Deezul”. You can call hse whatever you like though. “Bob and the Bowel Movements Fanclub” is ok too.
8. In the bigger white space underneath, you need to to write the charter for your group. For example, “The group for freinds and fans of Bob and his trusty Bowelmovements” or whatever.
9. Make sure you specify if your group has adult content, and also, that your group is free to join and open enrollment (unless you want it to be people you invite only).
10. When you are done, click on “Create Group” (bottom left of the window).
11. Fancy stuff:
    • You can drag a texture (pictures in your inventory) onto the Group Insignia box that will be displayed in the group’s profile.
    • In the Members subtab, you can invite and eject members from the group.
    • In the Roles subtab, you can create new roles and assign abilities to those roles.
    • In the Abilities subtab, you can browse the descriptions of abilities and see who has them.

Whenever you play you need to encourage anyone who likes you or what you are doing to sign up to your group so they can be informed about when and where you are playing next. As your group grows, so will both the fun (my group is full of some of the coolest people I have met – you really make freinds doing this) and the fees you can command. You need to have patience here, but over time it is possible to make a living playing music online. Several of my freinds actually do no offline performances at all and make a very healthy living inworld.

This was the last installment of the howto on playing shows in Second Life. There are also many other places to play online, and although none are as luctrative, you can rech out to very differet audiences. Stay tuned for more howtos, and let me know if you still have questions as I am happy to help! Remember too, to sign up to the mailinglist for monthly updates, pre-release freebies, music recommendations, and random wackyness from life in general You can sign up from here: http://jordanreyne.com/index.html (the big fat widget about half was down the page).

Have a great December!!